Thursday, January 29, 2009

Is This Really The Best Press Ad Of Last Year?

I really like the do they put on. Superlux food drink & service, but in a nicely informal atmosphere.

The overall winner, however, was greeted with a resounding shuffling of the audience's feet.

Lovely campaign, and not a bad ad within that campaign... and yet... it took me a while to get, and that's a worry, since I'm a person who looks unusually closely at adverts.

I try to avoid bigging up work from my own agency, but heck it's not me doing it this time, it's the ANNAs. This is an ad from a really nice campaign by Brad Woolf and Dan Bailey, which won the 'Best Media Partnership' category. I think that means 'campaign that feels perfectly suited to the medium'. If so, that's very true.

64 comments:

but then that's the way the anna's are set up.you don't enter, the things are entered on your behalf. (depending on what influence you have ;) )so more often than not it becomes an award for the best of a bad bunch.

this ad isn't the best ad of the year, but it's not a dog, and i certainly don't begrudge those boys getting 25 grand.

I'm not the best person to judge ads, but in terms of being deserving, Dan and Brad are the nicest, most hard working, disciplined, humble, co-operative, unassuming, decent and funny team i've ever worked with.

Are you sure?If you ignore the client and the fact that everyone's desperate to see something commendable come out of a once great agency that's now more than halfway down the u-bend. And then you read the words. Surely you will see that they are no more than 'okay'. They are on less than a par with the 25x4 Harrods ads that Leagas were churning out 12 years ago.Inspiring? No.Beautifully crafted? No.Wonderfully insightful? No.

You're right, the beer ad's not that great.But to be honest, the other two weren't much better either.The BA one - not THAT new.Some courier company had a similar thought years ago.Think was by Saatchis.Something about 'at this time last night, we couldn't have done this ad'.It's in that red D&AD Annual from the 80s.The last ad shown - am I being picky?Didn't think the copy's that great.Then again, what do I know?

Surely the headline on the John Lewis one leads you to think the ad is about their price promise, rather than the breadth of items they sell? Or, in other words, shouldn't the (admittedly nicely-written) copy be about the headline idea?

…or it just a case that Advertising is theatre and it doesn't matter if the ad gets the consumer to buy, just interested to buy? Is it just a question of Adnams making a statement that they are here and we should pay attention to them?

Don't get me wrong I don't want my whole rap to be a real downer. I think Adnams is a cool ad. You gotta give em' a reason for optimism or you're cooked. Ecology is a sound strategy but is it a crowded market?

Reduced carbon footprint, energy saving etc etc is de rigeur. It's a legitimate strategy to give people hope for a better world... hope for a better tomorrow. Adnams are climbing on the ecological bandwagon. But, as Scamp infers, is it the best press ad of last year? I think Tom Ewart and Dave Sullivan have encapsulated Adnams environmental standing well. The style carries on the original campaign. More power to their elbows.

I think made with 100% British barley's a much better reason. I heard a guy querying the provenance of the ingredients down the Dog and Duck last night. He also needed to know if the the potatoes in his crisp packet were from Norfolk or Linconshire. Think on lad.

There is a whole host of ecology warriors out there who drink beer. As a piece of communication the Adnams job works well.There is also a whole host of people out there who would love to drink british too…but that's another job.

Er... I don't rate the ANNA's what so ever. I was in it a couple of years ago for a truely horrific John Lewis sale press ad. I felt guilty just being there knowing that my ad didn't stand a chance, but took comfort in that half the room also knew how terrible their ads were.

The BA ads - what a missed digital opportunity. Nice strategy, but why a print campaign - Live webcams!! Real footage beats retouched photography when trying to convince people the terminal 5 is working, surely.